


In the Choosing

by chicleeblair



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Multi, Recovery, Trauma, knowledge of buffy the vampire slayer optional, no thrift store china was harmed in the making of this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 14:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicleeblair/pseuds/chicleeblair
Summary: As her loved ones recover from their recent trauma, October Daye learns the power of stories—even the ones that have nothing to do with Faerie.





	In the Choosing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MACRA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MACRA/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy this! I mainlined most of Seanan’s works this year (I’d already read the Mira ones!) and was struck by how many Buffy parallels were there—makes sense, as she was in Buffy fandom!—but this should be understandable even to a non-Buffy fan.

I love my chosen family with all of my heart. I would spill--and, in fact, have spilt—any amount of my blood for them, be it my fae blood or the small amounts of human-tagged cells still moving through my body. That said, I cannot necessarily say I rejoiced to find most of them draped across the furniture of my living room upon my return from Arden’s knowe late one night. What’d begun as a call to aide in clearing a salamander infestation out of a disused barn on a royal property that I believed Nolan may have uncovered simply to fill my dance card. The fact that the creatures were used to destroy Home— _my_ home—didn’t give me positive feelings toward them, but no one ever became a Knight of the Realm by not facing one’s fears. That didn’t mean I _enjoyed_ the way their beady eyes glowed right before the shot out one of the tongue of flames that had so singed my clothes. I came out of the ordeal reeking like a pack-an-hour smoker, and by the time I escaped Madden’s well-intentioned suggestions for additions to our plans for the wedding, I’d been smelling myself for far too long. One would think that the nose of a Cu Sidhe would be irritated by the smoke at least as much as my own—a literal bloodhound, I might be, but I do not have a bloodhound’s sense of smell—but apparently not enough to distract the queen’s senchaul from regaling me with tales of events they hosted at the bookstore, clearly of the opinion that the lessons he’d learned would apply to a gathering that looked likely to attract each and every faerie Tybalt or I had ever met, and a few more if Quentin didn’t learn to keep his mouth shut.

The blatherer himself was sprawled on the couch with his boyfriend, Dean Lorden, son of the duke and duchess of Saltmist, whose appointment as the Count of Goldengreen before the end of his teens would’ve been intimidating in the human world, let alone in Faerie, when most of us are still considered to young to be heard rather than seen at the age of twenty-five. Quentin Sollys might be the only seventeen-year-old who wouldn’t be fazed by having such a titled significant other—luckily for Dean, in the humble opinion of Quentin’s knight-master—in fact, Quentin frequently worried that Dean might be “freaked out” by the fact that in spite of Dean’s mother being the Saltmist regent, Quentin outranked him. He outranked most people, being the Crown Prince of the Westlands. So, not fazed by Dean’s rank. I didn’t think Dean would be at all upset over Quentin’s either, but at that point, at least, the secret hadn’t been revealed.

Fortunately for Quentin, Dean wasn’t the only other royal boy in our social circle. My fiancé’s nephew Raj happens to be his heir. The fae respect many thrones, with the High King holding dominion over lesser royals such as Arden; these hierarchies led the Cait Sidhe to call us The Divided Courts, for no Cait Sidhe monarch holds dominion over another. Luckily for Raj, his uncle had a reputation for being something of a maverick among Cait Sidhe royals—the prince would note likely be required to overpower his predecessor to prove his worth, in spite of the fact that his own father attempted to seize the throne in this way, never mind that he held no place in the line of succession. The difference between Raj’s nature and that of his father’s bolstered the tradition that led to Tybalt adopting his heir based on the kitten’s nature rather than their heredity.

Then again, heredity wasn’t my favorite topic, especially not in the immediate aftermath of the discoveries I’d only recently made about my biological family. There’d been a lot of them in a short amount of time, and they might have been most of the reason why I wasn’t overjoyed to walk into this gathering of my chosen family. The boys wouldn’t imitate an interrogation, but they weren’t alone in the living room that night. Raj was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa Quentin and Dean were sprawled on, leaving the loveseat empty for my sort-of sister May, who’s gaze darted to me the second I came through the door, and didn’t show any sign of shifting. Her lover, Jazz, sat curled up next to her, and to my surprise, she looked up, too, giving me a soft smile. She and I hadn’t exactly been at odds since my mother kidnapped her and held hostage in her raven form, but the air between us wasn’t clear, either. The time and energy I’d been able to spend on damage control from that fiasco had been focused on Tybalt, but knowing the effect the trauma of that time had on him compounded my guilt over Jazz. If I wanted to be perfectly honest, I might have admitted to myself that I might have been the one doing the avoidance in my relationship with Jazz, because I was afraid to know what effect the trauma had. It was enough to see the stress on my sister’s face, the delicate way she spoke of, and to, her lover, when May’s nature was anything but delicate.

That night, though, Jazz’s eyes were free of ghosts, and though May’s expression was irritated, she was smiling.

“We missed _Buffy_!” she informed me. I wondered if my memory had been altered—she clearly believed I should be able to understand that accusation. 

Jazz rolled her eyes and nudged May affectionately. “It’s not Toby’s fault. She was a fish at the time.”

“Duh, obviously I know that. She still could’ve watched the reruns, or something. Honestly, Toby, the amount of pop culture you missed out on, you could’ve at least _tried_ to catch up.”

“Before or after she dealt with losing Gillian, May?”

Every head turned toward Quentin, but there’s no way anyone else’s face showed more shock than I felt cross my own. He and May bantered fairly constantly, which made sense. May was, in many ways, me—though a me who felt the weight of my experiences differently; whose senses of responsibility and connection having come online fairly recently; and who, at the least, he did not owe the respect of a squire. Still, their back-and-forths rarely came with this kind of bite. Quentin rarely spoke that way to anyone. I couldn’t help being touched at his willingness to stand up for me, though I couldn’t let him get away with it. Pain flashed across May’s face at his use of Gillian’s name. May held all of my feelings toward my daughter, and unlike with Quentin, none of the actual experience. Teenage boy that he was, Quentin’s empathy was one of his strengths. He knew what he was doing.

He must also have known that I knew, because after punctuating the question with a long look at May, he turned to me. “It’s a TV show, Toby. A TV show that came on in 1997. You had a lot more important things to deal with.”

“That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have caught up!” May insisted. She had a tendency to argue for the sake of it, but I couldn’t tell if that’s what she was doing now. It didn’t seem like it, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

“Oh- _kay_ ,” I walked further into the living room, mentally giving up on the possibility of saying hi and bye to all of them before retiring to my bed. “What exactly is it that we’re discussing.”

“I believe they’re referring to a television show called _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_.” My heart rose, and a noticeable amount of the weight I’d carried with me for the past few hours lifted at the sound of my fiancé’s voice.

A therapist would probably have a lot to say about how quickly I’d accepted the distance he put between us after I saved him from Amandine’s clutches, and how slow I was to start expecting him to be there when I came home. That didn’t mean I wasn’t thrilled to see him—the sight of him crossing the room toward me, wearing the smirk that’d been far too rare lately, revived the desire to head upstairs in a significant part of my mind, though not for the same reason. The leather pants hugging his legs didn’t help that matter, though as he got close enough for me to wrap my arms around him and slide my hands down his back, I noted that it was far easier than it’d once been to slip my fingers between his skin and his waistband. He hadn’t recovered from his ordeal any more than Jazz had. In a bizarre way, knowing that was reassuring. I knew how much of an impact trauma could have on a person. There were still days that moved through engulfed in fog borne of losing my place in my little girl’s life, or woke screaming from a dream where I was a child again, being torn from the arms of my mortal father.

What Tybalt was going through would undoubtedly affect our relationship, I wasn’t afraid of change. I wasn’t afraid of darkness. Tybalt could reconfigure as much of himself as he needed, and I would be there. I simply needed him to be there, too.

“Salamanders?” he asked, after pressing a kiss to my hair.

“Mmm. How do you know about the vampire hunter thing?”

“Slayer!” May interjected, huffily.

“Whatever.”

Tybalt’s laugh rumbled through him, more a vibration than a sound. “The creator of the show also directed a recent film production of _Much Ado about Nothing_. Perhaps not the most original iteration I’ve seen, but a noble attempt to adhere to contemporary sensibilities without losing the spirit of the text.”

“Right.”

“He also directed _Avengers_ ,” Dean offered.

“That’s the Batman thing?”

Quentin gave me a look meant to inspire shame, and I changed the subject to avoid letting on that he’d been successful. Not bothering with pop culture was one thing; knowing less than a kid who lived most of his life underwater was another.

“Look, guys, I missed a lot of TV shows. What’s the big deal about this one?”

The boys turned to May, who nodded at Jazz. The raven-maid’s cheeks pinked, but the smile she gave me, the second in one night, was playful and—if I was reading it right—somewhat secretive.

“You’ll like it. Trust me.” I raised my eyebrow, and she tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. Without losing the secretiveness, she added, “Well, if nothing else you’ll connect with it. That I can promise.”

The air in the room felt colder, all of a sudden, and I wondered how much I _wanted_ another connection, as inconsequential as it may be.

Unfortunately, something in me read her uncertainty as a challenge, and if there’s one thing I could never resist, it was a challenge. I tugged Tybalt over to the sofa, narrowed my eyes at Quentin until he and Dean moved their miles of legs off of the cushions, and sat.

That was the beginning.

Over the next few weeks, I spent my days the way I always did: cleaning up whatever mess my superiors pointed me toward. Corralling creatures for Arden, searching for Sylvester for Simon. A few of these endeavors took more than one day, a few put me in more than a little danger. And as the number of evenings I spent in the living room watching a small, blonde human(-ish?) girl battle demons on my TV screen increased, I found myself considering each tasks in terms of Big Bads and Monsters-of-the-Week. The nuances of these classifications provided conversation fodder for Quentin and I during the less engaging parts of more than one adventure, but other than that, Buffy didn’t do much for me.

At least, not for the first few seasons.

Sure, I could see the similarities. Aside from the whole daughter-of-destiny thing, which let’s face it, isn’t that uncommon in stories, there were Buffy’s attempts to date the show’s equivalent of a mortal boy, and the teenage rebellion against her calling. She got yanked around by well-meaning men with old world accents. She interacted with a creature named Spike. But Quentin was the one who’d gone to an ordinary high school, and who wanted to call the coterie of fae who made up our inner-circle “The Scooby Gang.” 

Then, after an episode where Buffy manages to resist the thrall of a self-appointed vampire king, the Slayer is given an unexpected sister.

“I know it’s not the same,” I told Tybalt late that night, after we’d watched several episodes wherein Buffy fought to protect a sister she hadn’t know she had.

“But it makes you feel less alone. There’s no shame in that, Pet.”

Pet.

It took me longer than it should to realize why May kept darting glances at Tybalt whenever the bleach-blond vampire, Spike, came on screen. He went from Buffy’s enemy to her ally. Developed an unrequited crush on her. They fought together, and against each other. He protected her sister while she gave everything to save the world. The leather pants, the English accent, the name assumed once he came into its power—none of it said Tybalt to me. Not until a scene toward the beginning of the sixth season, where Spike ever-so-gently cleaned blood off Buffy’s knuckles did he wear an expression that I’d seen more than one time on my beloved’s face.

That sixth season took us longer to get through than most. We watched a single episode, most nights. Usually we stopped at Jazz’s request, but sometimes I could read Tybalt’s need for a break in the way his body shifted against mine, becoming a livewire--a cat waiting for a reason to pounce.

“Is it too much?” I asked him, after a musical episode that should’ve been mockable, but instead left me wondering if Tybalt ever wished he hadn’t made it through the fires that tore apart Rand’s life, all those years ago.

To his credit, he considered before answering me. “A king of the Cait Sidhe is meant to stand alone, you know. To be aloof. If he opens himself up to anyone, he is admitting weakness.”

“That’s not healthy, though,” I acknowledged, because to say more would be hypocritical.

“So I’m learning,” he said, kissing my temple.

It wasn’t an answer, and it was all the answer I needed.

May was the one who needed us to stop midway through the sixth season finale. She implied that she wanted to give Jazz time to process the death of yet another queer TV character, but Jazz wasn’t the one I found breaking a box full of thrift store china in the garage the next afternoon.

“Oh, hi. You’re home early,” she commented. She flicked her wrist and a dish flew through the air like a frisbee. It’d barely shattered before she’d taken the next one in hand.

“Arden’s preparing for a delegation from one of the South-Eastern courts. The New Orleans area, I think.”

“Oh, nice. That’ll be a fun party.” She said, not breaking her rhythm. “Maybe I’ll let Jazz make me a dress. I’m breaking these for her, you know. To make something out of. She’s making stuff again, you know. Gradually. Not as much shiny stuff as there used to be. That’s what you’d expect, right?”

“I guess,” I responded, though I doubted she truly expected an answer.

“Her world’s not as shiny. Except she says it’s not that. She says she doesn’t trust her instinct anymore. That she keeps thinking it’s the bird part of her coming through, wanting something shiny. I keep saying they’re both part of her. Equally. But what do I know? I’m not purely anything, that’s for sure. I’m not anything that’s ever existed before.”

The dishes flew faster. I rocked back and forth on my heels, not sure if I should interfere.

“And she’s part of who I am, you know? I’ve been with her almost as long as I’ve been human. If something happened to her, I don’t know what I’d do. Like, I literally. Do. Not. Know.” Each word was punctuated by the crash of breaking ceramic. The shards flying further in all directions. “What if I lost control, Toby? What if I hurt someone? She wouldn’t forgive me for it. She wouldn’t. But what if that’s who I am?”

A piece of the last cup she’d thrown bounced against the wall hard enough to come back and clip her in the forehead. I’d waited too long. I dove across the space separating us, wrapping my arms around May in a bear-hug. She dropped the mug she’d picked up to throw, and it crashed at her feet. I maneuvered us awkwardly backward until I could push her down onto a stepladder in the corner of the garage. She glared miserably up at me for a moment, blood mingling with her tears as both tumbled down her face, a visible manifestation of the nature she couldn’t reconcile, and then she pressed her face against my chest. I held her against me, letting both fluids soak my shirt.

It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last.

Our viewing of the last season less harrowing, but I paid it the most attention. The difficulty of passing the fight onto the next generation was a theme that most closely related to my life currently, a realization that threw me for a loop. Toward the end of it all, I found myself in the car with Quentin, letting him drive us to the Luidaeg’s for an answer I could only hope wouldn’t lead to me owing her years off my life.

“You know, it took me a while, but I realized the other day that I’d heard of Buffy before.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, his voice wavering.

“Mmhmm. Chelsea had a poster for it in her bedroom. One of many. But remembering that made me think of how much pop-culture sharing you guys do. You watched the Batman thing together, didn’t you.”

“The—?” He glared at me, and I grinned. “Oh, ha ha, Toby. You know exactly who The Avengers are, don’t you?”

“I was a half-human rebel before your parents even thought about creating you, Princeling,” I said. “I might not have caught up on the franchise post-koi pond, but that doesn’t mean I’m totally clueless.”

“Okay, fair enough.” Quentin tapped his fingers on the steering wheel for a few beats of the Barenaked Ladies song on the radio. “That’s not what you wanted to talk about, is it?”

“Wow, you’re two for two today.”

He rolled his eyes, and I couldn’t help chuckling. He might be approaching the end of his teenage years, but sometimes I could still see the fourteen-year-old.

“You stood up to May to protect me from a pretty innocuous threat, kid.”

He shrugged, but I caught something in his eyes that made me think of what I’d seen in May’s expression while she smashed china, or the way Tybalt reacted to seeing such an honest depiction of post-traumatic stress and depression. I considered those seasons of Buffy I hadn’t really connected with as an adult, the romance teenage Toby would’ve been so deeply invested in, the loss caused directly by the girl’s birthright.

Ah. Mine weren’t the only feelings he wanted to protect.

“Humans kept telling faerie stories for a reason, you know, and it doesn’t have much to do with us.”

He scrunched up his face in the way I knew meant he was wondering if I might be becoming senile early. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re not aware that they’re chronicling our history. The Elizabethans may have believed in magic more than most people do now, but do you think Shakespeare really thought Oberon and Titania existed? No. But he put them in at least one of his plays. And why? Because their stories, the love, the passion, the jealousy—you don’t have to be fae to understand or relate to that. The connection that comes from recognizing your experience in a story is a magic all its own. An important one. I think maybe I’d forgotten that. I got so lost in my own story, and let’s face it, there’s a lot there.”

“Yeah, one day humans may be writing you into their plays.”

“Mmm, but their favorite character will be my spunky, squire sidekick.”

“You know it.” He ran a hand through his hair, preening, and then blushed, returning the hand to the wheel. “So, it didn’t…bother you? Like, that’s not your story, obviously, but there are definitely parallels, and she loses a lot of people, and her sister…” He trailed off. We hadn’t talked much about August, and it occurred to me that maybe we should.”

“Her sister is different,” I said, reassuring him the way Tybalt reassured me. “But it’s kind of nice to know that my life isn’t so out of left field that a good writer can’t come close to making it up.”

“Huh.” He bit his lip, concentrating both on my words and on parallel parking in front of the Ludaeg’s building. “I guess…. Yeah. That makes sense.”

“Good. And yeah, there were some darker things that hit home, though I’m not sure facing them was a bad thing. I think it was good for all of us to do together. Don’t you?”

He nodded, and I couldn’t help being relieved at the way the shadows had cleared from his face, leaving the bright, eager expression I’d come to know so well.

My world held a lot of darkness, as did the worlds of everyone in my family. But what spending almost every evening with them over the past few weeks had reminded me was that the weight of it all could only get too heavy if you tried to carry it on your own. Better to share the load.

At least, until you can trick the next generation onto taking it on for you.

Maybe one day, I could be the elder who hid out in a difficult-to-find apartment and gave out cryptic prophecies in exchange for whatever whim needed filling that day. Geas not included. Until then, I had a squire to train, a fiancé to help, and a wedding to plan.

Also, I had to figure out a new way to fill my evenings. Maybe the time had come to teach the boys how to play poker. Quentin’s bluffing skills definitely needed work.


End file.
